by Filipa
Reis
abstract It is inevitable to wander between things and words, idea and reality when it comes to architecture. And that is precisely when we realise how important thought is in architecture. It is through thought that we manage to control the desperate desire that architecture has to spread and hold as many problems as it can. Out of the multiplicity of situations that we, as architects, find ourselves in at every second, it is again because of thought, that we are capable of zooming in and out of problems, being able to focus in constructive details as in such things as atmosphere or emotions.
This paper should then be considered more as a tool than as a statement. A tool that helped my reflection about several different dimensions in architecture and their substance. Because it is through thought that we amplify
architecture limits and
complexity, still trying to get it always more closer to reality and life.
‘What Lewerentz saw in the brick that no one else had seen fit to express before was the primacy of the module.’ by James W P Campbell in ‘Brick, a World of History’
St. Mark’s Church at Björkhagen (Stockholm) is one of the two brown brick churches designed by Sigurd Lewerentz (1885-1975). The other one is St Peter’s Church at Klippan. St Mark’s Church was started in 1956 and completed in 1960. This church is definitely why Lewerentz became well known between general public and also how he consolidated his name as a master amongst Swedish architects.
After the Second World War human sciences as Anthropology and Psychology became very important, as well as Structuralism relating to cultural relativism. Three basic answers were born from Structuralism: search for the truth in structure and the purity of form; using anthropology to percept how to design better forms to create space; and using history as the project guide. This project doubtlessly represents an integration of know how and thought. It is a place of engagement and articulation between situation and purpose, inseparable from tectonic eloquence and spaces with a very strong character. This church reflects architecture as a premeditated production of spaces in which the main concern is the activity character.
A church is no more than a house in its first concept. A house is composed by a number of spaces that interact and express a lifestyle. It is when the architect conveys the way that these spaces relate to each other that you can actually call it a house. And it is definitely not by chance that the church is considered to be God’s House. Our house is where we feel at home and closer to our family. A church is where the believer feels closer to God. Both house and church begin with the same concept: it must be made for any kind of person, so that everyone can feel it as your own, so the architect can not think about just one individual because he will probably end up with a building which reflects a collection of fragmented ideas. On the other hand, the house designed with the feeling that home is possible for each single one of us, easily turns into a treasure that last as long as the building itself.
This church is set in a birch wood separated from the suburban apartments nearby and therefore there is no sense of the building contributing to the immediate urban area in a conventional way. The architect establishes a detached environment within the birch grove, somehow creating a sense of place which could eventually be there before the
suburb had arrived. The church is orientated in the traditional way, even though it is difficult to identify the nave within the massing of the building. So we can see the main axis orientated east/west holding both the entrance and the altar. There is also a courtyard orientated north/south (between the offices and the volume that holds the nave and other few rooms). A detached timber portico watches over the courtyard and marks the church entrance. The church itself is entered through a foyer which leads to a public hall, a succession that appears to be inspired by a processional sequence in early Christian churches, a progression from daylight to darkness.
Timber is definitely one of the most prominent materials in Scandinavia presenting undeniable structural qualities acting as natural beams and pillars. Still, in this project, the chosen material was the traditional brown brick over timber, steel and glass even though these materials are still present in the building. Brick was used in several different ways, acting also as a structural material, while steel acts only as a structural material and timber was used for the entrance canopy, doors and a few other details. Besides that, both timber and brick, can be easily, packed and transported to wherever needed, while steel represents some difficulties on this matter.
Although the church had been built almost entirely in brick, only standard bricks were used and no bricks were cut at all. Cutting bricks was for Lewerentz, an anathema. Brick was used to make floor, walls, ceiling and even furniture. What indeed varied were the lime mortar joints in order to respond to different kind of structures, ‘resulting in walls where bricks are more like the aggregate within a conglomerate structure, rather than distinct, stacked masonry’.
round ironed
flush
racked or recessed
Because he wanted each brick to be read as a single entity they were usually laid in stretcher bond, but to make it work properly joints had to be thick and varied a lot, as mentioned before, especially in size. The ‘mortar was spread roughly and loosely over the bricks and scraped off, giving a flush joint.’
Bricks were one of the most common materials used in Sweden, especially for public buildings at the turn of the century. Lewerentz was probably attracted by his mentors work, which some described as being part of the ‘National Romantic Movement’; an urge of romanticism and lightness to draft poetic lines. Brick started being used as an ordinary material ending up with a commonplace status as it had happened already in England or Northern Germany.
But what Lewerentz was actually attracted to was to gain the possibility of achieving a renewed reality within the material condition of the building, meaning: ‘To make an extraordinary material special, is banal. To heighten one’s awareness of a humble material like brick, is poetic.’ This line of thought is definitely connected with what was called ‘The Libertarian Tradition’ This stands for the given right of not following rules, without breaking them while tradition stands for a given group of rules that one must follow. A building should be ‘simple, true and naïve’, modest and almost bucolic allowing us to achieve another level of proximity with nature learning how to leave off and with it. The key concept here was to find what was appropriate. Regardless of aesthetics there is only one proper building for particular place and one particular occasion. And this allows the building to be part of the context as well as the context to be part of the building.
The goal was to intensify the idea of the material by suppressing structural expression from technique and therefore provide freedom to the secret life that lies within it. But the architect gets even more extreme developing and achieving a new wall syntax. Due to that brick massiveness other issues arise. This material actually embodies an envelope where we can not only walk on, but one that also covers us, surrounds us. The result is a space full of character reflecting a seamless web of materiality and shapes out of what almost looks like a fabric. The entire situation, including the reduced range of materials used, obviously changes our perception on brick and makes us look at it as a whole new material which enhance our awareness of the physical presence of the church.This same enveloping brick fabric and the brutality with which all openings are made in that fabric, do not have an iconic intent but rather reflects the fairness in treating all the single
structures a building has. This ends up reflecting some of a muteness from the exterior connecting to the inside darkness that immediately appeals to our emotions (as a church should always be able to do).
This would definitely recall to Modernism but especially to New Brutalism. Both were, before everything else, an ethical attitude towards life that made both architect and architecture an important part of what was a great change in social habits, abolition of private property, city planning and the belief of an universal man in his essence as well as egalitarian rights. According to Royston Landau, the expression ‘New Brutalism’ suggested the interest for formal aspects only, forgetting about all the social concerns that used to influence the generations before, focusing on the nudity and purity of form and structure and not caring anymore about claddings. New Brutalism shouldn’t be just about a formal language, but a way of experimenting and dealing with things such as the theme, the program and the materials used in the project. Those were probably some of the reasons that made architecture during the 60’s and 70’s a result of a long theoretical reflection instead of the product of a project formal elaboration.
By questioning the most basic elements of construction, the architect takes away the possibility of our direct perception on conventionalised associations within the church. Stressing the raw, existential nature of his materials, Lewerentz privileges a subjective experience of the world. He is making a conscious break with the tradition of western sacred architecture which relies strongly on convention to embody a particular feeling, emotion or belief. By adopting this phenomenological approach, Lewerentz recognises prayer as an individual, meditative activity and forces us to confront the condition of our own existence.
So besides functional and structural properties, architecture creates built environment
atmosphere and generates emotions. We experience the place according to the situation, and the way we perceive space changes as we change our spacial placement. It’s been a long time since architects understood that the
social system of cultural norms
physical environment has consequences in the human being behaviour. But between physical environment and empirical human behaviour observed, there’s a social system also involved which tells how a human being will use and react to every different environment in his daily life. Architects know that
behaviour
human presence transforms an abstract space in a place full of meaning and with experimental value.
Architectonic quality can only be described as one thing: to feel emotionally touched by a building. And only something totally indescribable is capable of such thing: the atmosphere. When one enters a building, one knows the meaning of that space. This emotional perception may not be as immediately in architecture as in other arts, but it is definitely there. But what is atmosphere made of? According to Peter Zumthor, everything. Atmosphere is made of everything that surrounds us: things, people, air, noise, material presences, textures, forms. But besides that, atmosphere is also made out of our mind spirit, of our feelings. The atmosphere that you perceive from a building exists mostly inside ourselves. And it is certain that no one feels one building in the same way. Three basic concepts of architecture can certainly help us understanding what atmosphere might be about:
Light, ‘Architecture is the wise, correct and magnificent play of volumes gathered under light; our eyes are made to perceive shapes under light’ said Le Corbusier. An architecture plan should be read as a group of spaces and light., interacting. One must be able to read the light that penetrates into every single space. Spaces should not be considered as architectural spaces unless they have natural light because whatever happens with the intensity of that light, both spaces and individuals should be able to coop with it. Artificial light is not more than a moment of light while natural light is infinite. And infinitive in the multiplicity that it offers to a space. Light makes the space. Variations and gradations of light give the colour. As a consequence we reflections arise, reflections that come from the floor, the materials, the furniture and turn the space into something that we feel like home. It’s something that keeps surprising us, day after day, and something we can not depend on.
Wall The wall has always protected Men. In its strength and roughness it has always protected mankind from destruction. A wall, when used must be considered a big event in the creation of space for it is indeed what makes the separation between the space the architects creates and the rest of the world. In some cases it represents mere structure but we can not forget that a wall lives in its longitude and amplitude defining space and showing how it works. A wall does not release light unless one makes an opening in it, that’s one of the things that make it different from a column.
Window The window intermediates the transition between interior and exterior in a very subtle way. It is at the same time, both a way of separating and connecting. Its meaning is right in between this two extreme poles depending both in the observer intention and the light condition. It determines the spaces that surround us, what’s interior and exterior, regardless of climate differences.
The window is also how one regulates what one can and can not see, by shaping the window in an appropriate way. The articulation between interior and exterior and all these patterns reflect the mental transition between the public and the private domain and this is one of the most fundamental aspects of the human behaviour.
Bibliography 1. Janne Ahlin, Sigurd Lewerentz Architect, The MIT Press, London 1987, p 152 2. Martin Heidegger, Poetry Language Thought, Harper and Row, New York 1971, p 160-91 3. Caruso St John Architects, Adam Caruso, Sigurd Lewerentz and a Material Basis for Form, OASE January 1997, Issue 45/46, pp.88-95
Amsterdam, NL:
4. James W P Campbell and Will Pryce, Brick: A World History, Thames & Hudson, Brick Bulletin, Spring 2006, p. 2 5. Colin St. John Wilson, Sigurd Lewerentz and the Dilemma of the Classical, Perspecta, Vol. 24, (1988), pp. 50-77